Workshop: Fake News in Digital Culture

Liliane Bounegru (Universities of Amsterdam and Ghent, Public Data Lab)

Wednesday 9 May, 11:00- 13:00
Room: S0.20

Postgraduate Workshop
Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies, University of Warwick

The 2016 US presidential election has brought social media and associated digital culture phenomena such as Internet memes and fake news under intense media and academic scrutiny. Concerns have been raised about the rapid distribution of this problematic content on social media and many technological, media literacy and fact-checking solutions have been proposed to curb these worrying dynamics. This workshop draws on insights, concepts and approaches from science and technology studies and Internet studies to examine current debates and research around misinformation and “fake news” and challenge some of the assumptions behind them. It argues that fake news is not just problematic content whose rapid spread needs to be curbed, but that this phenomenon encapsulates central aspects of our digital environments and thus it also provides a good opportunity to study their dynamics. More specifically it proposes to explore the publics, modes of circulation and tracking networks in which fake news is embedded as an opportunity to reflect on how digital platforms and the dynamics that they engender participate in the production of public (mis)information.

All postgraduate students are welcome, but places are limited, so please register by emailing cim@warwick.ac.uk